Viscid Frost
by skrewtkeeper
Summary: Did you know that ice is sticky? MMAD.


**Viscid Frost**

The air was chilled, almost to an inhumane degree. Her breath is easily recognizable among the other short wisps of air created by the quaking small bodies around her. The cubs of hers sought refuge in her very presence, and flocked to her one by one, until she sat with each of them beneath her arms for protection.

Minerva McGonagall was warm, almost too warm from all of the excess body heat, yet, her breath remained frigid and the sensation of inhaling frothy air when warmth surrounded her caused her to tremble just slightly. The Gryffindor Common Room was iced over with an unknown curse, courtesy of one mad death eater. The professor and the students were huddled together in a tight corner where the ice ended, where a small patch of warmth was offered as a blessing to the cold.

Her eyes wandered upon each of the student's heads. They were all familiar in sight, perhaps, but not in touch. Gingerly, she reached out and righted each hair out of place until the majority of those young first and second year students whom had crawled to her, weeping for solace in such a cold and unfriendly night, were asleep. Though her own eyes itched in the ever-present sensation of exhaustion, she refused to close them until she was certain of their safety.

Lazily, she traced patterns on the rug nearest to her left hand through a small thicket of bodies for hours before hearing a floorboard creak near the eastern window.

"Liams! Come over here this instant!" she whispered urgently, fearful for what would become of the small boy; even though the fight was near over, the cursing was not.

The boy merely turned to her, his crystalline-blue eyes shining to her for a moment before he smiled sweetly at her, his auburn hair shining a dark brown against the eerie sea-green tinge of ice.

Minerva struggled to break free from the mass of bodies that held her captive, but to no avail.

"Liams!" she whispered again, twisting from side to side in order to free her wand hand to Summon him, should it deem necessary. "Come away from the window at once!"

"Professor, it's alright, the battle is over," he whispered gently back to her, placing his index finger over his lips in order to calm her urgent ordering. "There are no more to fight back…"

"No more…?" she repeated wonderingly, her eyes wavering to the portrait hole and back to his eyes again.

Liams smiled again, his teeth sparkling shockingly white against the subtle glare of the ice fortress that surrounded them. "No Professor… The fight is over… We have won…"

Minerva sighed in relief for a moment, forgetting herself, before gathering her bearings. "You're quite sure?"

"Positive."

She frowned a moment at him; his eyes were gleaming a bit _too_ brightly.

"Where is your proof?" she asked finally, deciding that freeing her wand hand was still a high priority at this point. The boy seemed feverish.

"Ah, there are signs… The silence, the wind, the distant mark…"

"Mark?" Minerva interjected forcibly with a frown, not liking his choice of words at all.

Liams nodded. "Yes, the mark whose darkness is light above--"

But Liams never finished his sentence. At that very moment, the window he stood near to exploded, sending the child down into the floor, trembling and clutching his face.

As if on cue, Minerva jumped up, heedless of the flopping heads she left behind her. She held her wand aloft in order to assist Liams with the little knowledge of healing spells she retained from many conversations with the school matron.

"Come here Liams," she coaxed gently, lighting her wand wordlessly and kneeling beside him once she carefully crossed the ice to reach him.

Liams refused to remove his hands from his face, even when Minerva assured him that she was not about to hurt him.

"I have disobeyed you… I should live with this face…" he murmured to himself, gripping his face with more force even as Minerva tried to pry his hands tenderly from what was now his mutilated face.

"Though a foolhardy thing to do, I will not have you live with the damage for the rest of your life… A whole window blew in on you… One would think that you would ask me to fix your face…" she trailed off, still attempting to take his hands off his face. Abruptly, as she caught a faint glimpse of his bloodied face, he dashed off into the corner of the room and started trembling again, his face hidden in the crook of his arms, raised upon his bent knees.

"Liams, just come here… I won't hurt you," she said again, growing slightly agitated at the child's belittlement.

Even as he shuddered, Minerva could discern that he shook his head roughly.

"I am not of your kind…" he whispered, his voice hanging on the air as Minerva began to cross the room cautiously to reach him. What suddenly struck her as odd was the fact that Liams had no trouble crossing over the expanse of the ice.

"Don't be rash… You are one of my students, and as such require care just as any other student of mine."

"I am not 'your student'," he said quietly, at last raising his face from his knees, knowing that Minerva had given up trying to reach him due to the thick ice.

His soft, blue eyes had melted into some grotesque form; they were now a vivid, acrid green, with black slits as a cat's eye. Minerva involuntarily stepped back as his saber-white, lengthy fangs were quite detectable now.

"No…" she said automatically as Liams's gaze wandered upon the sleeping children before his eyes made the journey back to her own. He smiled again, his eyes widening in excitement and his fangs bared, ready to make puncture.

"But I am one of your students…" he pointed out in a sappy, high voice which mimicked her own. "I require care just as they all do… My…" he trailed off, pausing for the correct word before grinning toothily again, "_condition_ is best served this way anyway. There is no pain, only sleep."

Liams glided gently over to the sleeping children, picking up one of the smaller first-year girls Minerva had taken a liking to almost immediately upon beginning the new term. He cradled her almost lovingly in his arms while Minerva struggled to maintain her footing to stop him.

"Not Marcella!" she whispered frantically, bringing her wand in the air to stop him from committing the act, but no spell came to her, as if someone had hit her with a Confundus charm.

Liams giggled quietly before placing his fangs to her throat and gulping her life-giving blood thirstily. Minerva threw a heavy spell book at him, but it did not cause him any pain. It was only a minute before he tossed Marcella aside and moved on to the next victim.

Minerva struggled to regain her lost footing again, but her attempts were fruitless… She began crawling over the ice in order to reach Liams and cause him bodily harm, but with this plan, Liams only began tossing victims aside faster, drinking as though he were dying from thirst…

Her emotions were no longer controlled as she looked upon the heap of children defeated without even a muscle moved to reaffirm the possibility… The children could _not_ be dead…

Crawling to an ill-disposed one, she touched Shetlar's pale cheek and found the undeniable coldness within him. Forcing his eyes open with her fingers, she glimpsed the shadow of death lingering in his sightless eyes… Pulling her wand before her, she shot dozens of disarming and stunning spells at Liams, but nothing helped. He finished all of the children off, one by one while they slept. The stench of fresh blood assaulted her nose even as Liams disappeared with a horrendously sweet giggle out of the Portrait Hole… Minerva stared around her at the dead children she had promised to protect, and all at once, a wave of shame and guilt shook her before she fell to the glass-like floor, her head smashing hard against the ice. She shivered and screamed in grief, curling up into a ball in order to avoid looking once more at those dead children… Those dead children whom were her own… Those dead children whom she failed to protect…

Waking with a start, her right hand flew to her chest, resting for a moment on her racing heart. Gasping for breath, her tears came and closed off her means to escape the images. _Those dead children…_

She shivered beneath her blankets and discovered cold sweat drenching her and the sheets around her. The tears appeared again, but she could not fight them off. They spilled down her cheeks, and she rasped pitifully for breath… Her rasps quickly reverted to drawn-out sobs, and she wandlessly cast a silencing spell on her door and walls so no one could hear her weep. She furiously wiped the tears from her eyes, cursing whoever thought up the idea of nightmares. Things were bad enough without them…

Breathing in deeply again after several minutes of continuous sobbing, Minerva settled in her blankets again after wiping them clean with a few cleansing spells specially designed for drenched sheets. Every time she closed her eyes, however, the iced-over Gryffindor Common Room loomed threateningly into view.

Shivering still at the memory, she decided that sleep would continue to elude her. With this in mind, she decided to head down to the kitchens to fix herself some tea or better yet, hot cocoa.

Gritting her teeth sharply together at the thought of drinking hot cocoa, and at this time of night, no less, she snatched her dressing gown from her wardrobe, tying it as she bestowed her wand in her pocket to make the now forbidding trip, which somehow seemed so simple in daylight.

=~*~=

It was there that he found her. At the crack of three, Albus Dumbledore could no longer coax sleep to return to his exhausted eyes. It seemed as though he was doomed forever to worry through the night. Deciding that hot cocoa was definitely in order, he had slipped quietly down his revolving staircase, en route to the kitchens. He opened the door and what befell his eyes was a curious sight indeed.

Minerva rested her head upon the table, her cold cup of tea just inches away from her face. Her ebony hair pooled around her in a perfect halo that spoke to his soul. She was not comfortable, that was plain to see, but she was deeply asleep, and Albus was very well-aware of how difficult it was to retain that phase.

Without thinking, his hand came to rest upon the small of her back. Instantly, she breathed more deeply, as though she were about to wake, but instead nestled her head on her hands more comfortably. Albus released a breath that he had not realized he had been holding and tenderly stroked her cheek, easing her back into the suddenly transfigured chintz armchair, which replaced the backless bar stool. At once, her eyes flew open, and her wand's tip was alight and an inch from his crooked nose, his white beard and hair shining with an unworldly glow.

"Albus!" she cried, stowing her wand hastily back into her front pocket. "What are you doing here?"

Albus smiled, looking at her beneath his half-moon spectacles in his Gryffindor-lion dressing gown as he probed, "I believe the proper inquiry here is what are _you_ doing here, my dear? You can't have been here for only a few minutes…"

Minerva winced, looking back to her cold cup of tea and away from his concerned gaze.

Realizing his error at once, Albus's hand stroked her cheek again before he poised it there. "What is wrong, Tabby?"

Minerva shuddered as her eyes met the same crystalline-blue of Liams's eyes. She looked away again, chewing for the right words before finally saying, "There is nothing wrong, Albus. I simply fell asleep after retrieving a cup of tea for myself…"

"You know, house-elves are quite useful. Calling one would have saved you a trip," he pressed.

"I did not desire company."

"Even of a house-elf? I've found through the years that they are a very good source of company even when one does not desire it…"

Minerva glared at him before standing and moving towards a bar stool opposite the chintz armchair. She sighed before warming her cold tea with a nonverbal spell and bringing it to her lips to drink. Drawing her velvet emerald dressing gown around her for more warmth, she firmly decided that she would not tell Albus what she had discovered in the course of that dream. He did not _love_ her, after all.

"Would you like to talk about it?" Albus asked finally, his eyes resting gently upon Minerva, willing her to look up at him again.

Despite what had happened before, she looked up again and saw those same, haunting eyes. She looked away at once and concentrated wholeheartedly on her tea cup.

Without warning, Albus sat opposite her in the abandoned chintz armchair and interlocked the fingers of her left hand within his own. "My dear, I find that talking about something that is bothering me helps ease my fears," he related gently, absentmindedly stroking her hand within his grasp.

The tears returned, and Minerva gulped them back noisily with her tea, but to no avail. She shook her head roughly, but that only caused her to look again at Albus, whose eyes were so warm and gentle that the tears broke loose and spilled down her face.

Placing her cup rather hastily on the table, she tried to make it look as though fatigue had claim over her eyes, but Albus knew better. Without a word, he walked around to the other side of the table, sitting beside her, and gently coaxed her into his arms. She came at last, and there, wept silently for several minutes as Albus stroked her back soothingly, kissing the side of her head a few times and whispering comforting reassurances in her ear.

When the crying was at last at bay, Minerva sighed at the meaningless comfort he granted before sitting back in her own chair. Albus let her go with reluctance, but his hopes brightened as he realized that she was preparing herself mentally to tell him what was wrong.

After thirty minutes of revealing her tale, Albus understood; she felt she had failed him.

"Minerva, it was just a nightmare, nothing more, nothing less," he eased, brushing the runaway strands of her hair back behind her ears. Minerva brushed his hand away and stared unseeingly at her tea cup. He did not see the entire picture, the reason why she refused to tell him the nightmare in the first place…

"But I have failed you, Albus…" she whispered. "Not only in my dreams, but in this life as well…"

Albus shook his head. "No you have not. If I had a deputy that failed me, it certainly would not be you."

"Don't think so highly of me, Albus," she muttered darkly, wondering if she should head off to bed without saying anything more.

"How can I not?" he inquired, resting his right hand on her knee.

Minerva shivered and said, "Albus, are you as blind as those who work for the _Daily Prophet_?!" Her hands trembled as she said this, and she refused to look at him, even as his eyes remained fixed upon her face. "Liams isn't simply a student of mine… He's mine…. He's _mine_," she choked, sniffling before bringing her tea back to her lips to discourage any further conversation.

"Your _what_, my dear?" Albus inquired helplessly, lost as to how to offer further healing to her. Who on earth _was_ Liams? Was he someone she had been involved with before they had claimed one another's hearts? Albus thought so highly of Minerva that he no longer cared if she had been with other men besides himself; any man would be ever so lucky to breathe the same air as she, yet, what bothered him was that Liams bothered her so enormously…

Minerva shook her head roughly, biting her tongue to refrain from saying the very words she swore she would never say aloud; to admit such a thing aloud would cause it to become the truth… She did not wish for the truth. She wished for normalcy; with or without Albus, she would deal with whatever her dream meant on her own. Albus did not need to stick his abnormally long nose into what he could not understand…

"I'm sorry to have caused you such _great_ concern, Albus," Minerva stated acidly, her own words carving away at her heart for how much pain this would cause Albus in time. "I will be fine come morning."

She stood to leave with her dignity still her own, her pride still written on her face as she swept out the door without another word. She turned down the hall when she sensed Albus rushing after her with that awful concern, that plague of all plagues within him, guiding his actions, misleading her to always actually believe that he acted on love alone.

She gritted her teeth as he suggested they talk in a spare classroom. She stiffly agreed to his whims; whatever route to shut him up with the greatest speed was her ultimate goal.

"Minerva," Albus began heavily, looking suddenly as he had aged all of his one hundred or so years all at once a second time, "I just want you to realize that you may tell me anything…"

"Yes," she replied briskly, the cool teacher voice vomited her words at once as a defensive move, "you have told me this before, and I am frankly _honored _at such a _gallant_ offer, but this is something that is beyond the both of us… Everything will be fine come morning, you shall see."

Albus winced at every emphasized word and continued in spite of the irritated woman before him, "I am most apologetic that you do not think of me more than that… I've always held you in great esteem, Minerva--"

"Until tonight that is, when you found me in the kitchens, prodding me and questioning me about everything that may be wrong with my life at this very moment, confusing me, and misleading me to believe that you were acting on more than concern? Peeling away my layers of self-control, willing me to believe that you actually have more than friendship beneath your thick chest, causing me to lie naked and barren in your lap? Disgusting behavior, I will admit, and I shall not permit you to see that side of me again… I am most sorry if any minute of that display caused you to worry for more than my well-being. Though I do appreciate your obviously _awful _concern, I have nothing wrong with me and you are wasting your time bringing the both of us here to discuss a problem that does not exist…"

"You didn't let me finish, Minerva," Albus said softly, his eyes now a sparkling sapphire, with a fire all their own, no longer resembling that haunting crystalline-blue. "I have always held you in great esteem, Minerva, and I still do, save for tonight, as you have voiced, but not for the same reasons," he added quickly as Minerva opened her mouth to shoot his words with ash before they had a chance to render her mind to comprehend.

"I care a great deal about you, Minerva," he confessed deeply, reaching out to her wand hand and simply holding it with his left. "You _did_ cause me concern when I found you tonight, but the esteem I've held for you fell into what I can only describe as a chasm of light, a bottomless pit, a hole of which I'd fall forever in if you were waiting just beyond my reach… I _love_ you, Minerva, and I was only strongly reminded of that when I came upon you in your beautiful, quiet slumber… Tell me, Minerva, why were you sleeping on the table instead of in your bed?"

"Because you weren't there beside me," she whispered at once, aghast at both revelations, his and her own.

Albus nodded his head gently in understanding. "Ah, yes… Tell me, Minerva, has your bed grown two sizes too large as of late?"

Minerva said nothing and looked to the flagstone floor, with no words to convey how greatly she felt the same.

"Can you forgive an old man and his unwise counsel?" Albus asked quietly, almost daring to cast a spell on his hearing to never hear her reply, but she looked at him, her emerald eyes swimming with unshed tears, fearing hope weaved in every gentle corner of her face. She looked at him, she stared at him, in the only way that she could and said nothing to him for almost a minute. Albus nearly withdrew his own emotions, his own hope until she responded at last.

"Can you… forgive," she began slowly, her voice ram-rod and true, besmearing the tears running down her face, "…a woman who loves a man so much, that she would do anything in her power to please him? Can you forgive a woman who loves a man so much that she would let him go for what was supposedly the good for them both? Can you… _love_ a woman like that?"

Albus let go of her hand and stroked her cheek, smiling at the way her eyes fell closed as softly as a beat of a hummingbird's wings under his attentions. She leaned more firmly into the palm of his hand, and as Albus grinned more broadly, he realized he held his entire world balanced on the tips of his fingers.

"Yes," he said simply, moving his roving hand to the nape of her neck, stroking and teasing it until she leaned forward ever so slightly. He kissed her nose as he did so, and at her purr he withdrew, and brought both his hands to her trail of tears, wiping them away with his thumbs with sweet, gentle motion.

"Can I erect a name in your honor? Can I tell the world that I love you?" Albus whispered so quietly, it could have been the wind. "No, I cannot. I cannot give you my name. I cannot tell the world that I love you, but I can love you all the same, if you will only allow."

"Can I hold a man in my heart with too many worries in his head that he forgets what lies in his own heart?" Minerva inquired in a stage whisper as she shook her head. "Yes, I can," she said softly, bringing her own hand to his face and stroking it gently there before granting him the access to her inviting lips. He then kissed her tenderly, telling her what mere words could not convey. He kissed her lovingly, caressing her cheeks worn with worry and strictness, melting the elements away into the woman he saw within.

As they parted to breathe, Minerva began to relate to him the rest of what she suspected of her nightmare. He conjured a sofa from thin air for them to sit upon and he wordlessly gestured to her to lie securely in his arms for as long as a night would allow. Albus pointed at the door, locking it and barricading all sound to remain within the abandoned classroom before she began.

"I feared to tell you this," she began quietly, relaxing further as he held her closer to his heart. She almost smiled; he knew her so well. "I questioned whether you even loved me, even though you have assured me so many times of the affirmative… I feared that you never loved me to begin with, so I planned to keep this information to myself."

Albus nodded against her, tears pulling at the edge of his vision; it was his fault for this, he knew. But Minerva knew him so well… She reached behind her and stroked the cheek nearest to her, conveying to him her knowledge of him blaming himself. "It's all right Albus," she said softly, "I kept so much from you that perhaps it was my fault. Whoever it is to blame," she began quickly as she felt him tense up to speak on her behalf, "I believed that you no longer loved me. You cared for me, surely, as you did the rest of the staff and the children we rear daily, but love was beyond you. You had far too many to care for; you could not possibly harbor feelings for a formidable woman like myself. I accepted this. I accepted also that you may never again wish to search for any love of any kind… It pained me to see you so tired, so exhausted from the burdens you bear daily, yet I never did offer you any sort of comfort. I never did allow you to realize that I loved you as intensely as you loved me."

"I began to live in fear," she continued, sighing at how difficult the final revelation was going to be. "I began to live, fearing that you would one day approach me, demanding to know precisely why I loved you. I cannot tell you. I do not even know for certain at best even now, for sometimes, Albus, you drive me up the wall…"

He chuckled against her, and she smiled, reveling in the sensation of how familiar it felt to be held. "And then this nightmare was a reflection of that massive fear I held in my heart everyday. The child in the dream, Albus… He was my son… He is _our _son." Here, she moved off his lap and beside him, bringing his old, calloused and gentle hands to her abdomen, making it a point to smile at him as comprehension kindled in his old, yet beautiful, cerulean eyes. Before he could bring her back into his arms to lavish her with as much love as she deserved, Minerva interrupted his pursuit.

"I have never believed in divination, or any sort of hogwash that these children have to learn at some time or another," she began, her irritated voice rising to the surface again as Albus simply grinned and nodded. "Yet for this one, I shall make an exception. I fear he will turn out the way he did if I do not have your help in raising him… Will you be a father to our son?" she questioned in a whisper, never daring to even hope for his approval.

"Minerva," Albus began softly, bringing the back of her head to his lips to kiss her head and stroking her abdomen as he did so, "if you are so frightfully worried about his future even now, who is to say that you will not make a remarkable mother? I will be a father to our son because I want to, not because it is required of me to continue our relationship… I love you, Minerva. I love you. I will love our son when it is time to meet him also."

"I was hoping you would say that," Minerva muttered as Albus smiled at her again. All concept of time was lost as Albus carried his queen to her chambers upon her request, and this night, this eternal night, he held her for the first time in over a month. She fell asleep easily in his arms and Albus marveled at his luck to have captured such a grand woman's heart, worthy of every bit of love he held in his heart for her. As he thought back to the nightmare that had somehow brought them together again, Albus had one last thought on his mind before sleep claimed him.

Love indeed _was _sticky, but worth more than anything in the world. An invaluable thing that was overly underestimated by those who did not understand it. Age did not protect one from love, but love, to some extent, protected one from age, and from this cause did Albus smile and drift off to sleep with the woman he considered to be the love of his life in his arms, with one hand upon her stomach, sheltering their unborn child with the great love he already carried without shame in his heart.

* * *

**A/N:** _BLAH! That was sticky! And messy! And cheesy! BLECK! -chuckles- Reviews are ever so appreciated. They bring me the timber to continue writing. I have flames... I have plenty of them, but good reviews are like timber... AND I NEED THIS MARVELOUS TIMBER. :D Okay, I'm insane. Anyways, this idea began out of nothing one April evening this year, and it began with Minerva having the nightmare, and Albus finding her... But I lost my timber. I decided to wait on it until I received inspiration, and that inspiration came in several different forms, on plenty of HBP tribute vids lurking about, but the fluffiest bits were inspired from the song "Burgundy Shoes" by Patty Griffin. I'd recommend the song to anyone in a heartbeat. It's a work of art. Thank you my readers. School's about to begin, so new fics may be even more scarce. I'm sorry for this. I'll try to post that big MMAD fan-fiction I've been talking about for almost a year in a couple of months. :D Stay tuned.  
_


End file.
